14 Things People Have Said That Made My 2014

As I’ve said before, words will both break and mend you. This year was full of trials, joys, lessons, and tests — all geared towards making me better as a person, even if facing them made it so hard to believe. Words have indeed broken me so many times in the form of empty promises and false dreams, but they also mended me in advice and praise. So I present to you the words that changed me. Some you may recognize, and some you may have to guess on your own.

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1. You always have to be careful who you invest your feelings in. If he’s not investing as much as you are, there must be something wrong.

2. Please continue to try to be happy, to find the love that you deserve more than anyone. And please never get tired of loving people. You mean a lot to more people than you know.

3. I just hope you never get tired of me.

4. The worst thing that I have ever seen in my life is seeing you cry, and I hope I will never see that happen again.

5. Don’t think of this as an opportunity wasted. You didn’t drop this job offer because you were going to just bum at home and do nothing. No. You are going to accomplish something far, far better than that. Think of this as an opportunity delayed.

6. Always remember this. He lost a young, bubbly, and emotionally mature lady who accepted him for who he was: his faults, his joys, and his trials. She didn’t expect him to be this or that, no, not at all. He lost the one person who thought he was enough just the way he was.

7. You said on the first day of writing class that you were twenty-one and in need of experience. But throughout this whole week, I have been wanting to say this but I’ve never gotten the opportunity to. You said you were looking for experience, but by the looks of it, you have far more of it than the rest of us combined. Don’t say you’re concerned about age because f— that! You could be sixty and be bloody rotten at writing! Age doesn’t matter when it comes to that. Don’t stop. Never, ever stop.

8. I’m forty and divorced. You’re twenty-one, a youngin, and let me tell you, you have a bloody mature voice within you. [I could write a story about you. Pen a memoir for you, maybe?]

9. O, so, ano? Imagine if you chose to accept that first job offer. Imagine if you didn’t go to Germany. You wouldn’t have gotten to where you are now, having a job that was almost built for you. What could have happened then? Do you still regret it?

10. Stories bring people together.

11. Remember your own triumphs. One achievement is not higher than the other — we don’t achieve better, we achieve differently.

12. You are an uncomplicated soul, no qualms.

13. You have proven to everyone else and most importantly to yourself that you can accomplish great things. So, you don’t have to be afraid, not at all.

14. Your writing is really, really good. Let me tell you that this’ll be very tough. You will cry tears of blood and sweat, and that’s not even the half of it. But with me, you will learn. I guarantee you that. I see the potential in you. In six months, you will not even recognize the writer you were. So, are you still up for it?

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And just like the people I’ve met, so have the words came and gone. 2014 has both tried and delighted me, in so many ways. And just like the words that left the confines of my mind, so will I with this blog. It’s not because I’m leaving the blogosphere at all, no. It’s for a different reason. This blog has served me well for two years, and has been the very agent that got me back into writing.

But the name carnivaltowns is indeed the Norah Jones song (‘carnival town’ actually) that solidified this persona of loneliness, which I vow never to associate with anymore. I have found a new place, a newer, fresher place I could literally call my own. And it’s just a click away. This blog will still be around, but I won’t be with it no longer.

2015 is the year of reinvention, and I hope to find it with my new home starting January the first at http://tiffanyjillian.com.

Cheers, guys. See you on the other side and thank you for the immense support and reading through. I can’t wait to see how this new project of mine turns out.